Rick Heiges

If you cannot make it to TechEd in person, you can still enjoy some of the content that will be webcast from TechEd.  Here is the llink where you can start making room in your schedule for next week.  https://www.msteched.com/content/webcasts.aspx   There are 9 sessions currently scheduled for SQL Server to be presented live via webcast.  Naturally, these webcasts can be accessed on-demand later.

If youare going and have questions about TechEd, there is now a "bot" that you can IM questions to.  It is teched06@hotmail.com. 

Also, check out the latest content at www.RickSQL.com - the latest is how to run SQLDiag on a SQL2000 Cluster.

Well another day done at the convention center.  PASS manned the Ask the Experts Table today which was the heaviest day by far for traffic in the SQL Server Cabana Area.  TechEd attendees could get the latest CTP, a voucher for Standard Edition of SQL Server 2005 when it gets released, and some swag visiting the cabana and the official product booth in the exhibit area. 

Tonight, there will be some parties to go to such as Redmond Magazine, MVP Influencer, and the Best of TechEd awards.  I'm sure that there are still more parties going on out there around TechEd.  I attended a session on SSMA (SQL Server Migration Assistant for Oracle) this morning. It helps in the conversion process of database objects and data from Oracle to SQL Server 2000.  It looks like it could save some major time in the identification and implementation of changes to database objects, structures, and code.  It is a free download off of www.microsoft.com/sql/migration . 

I wanted to let everyone know about SQL Server events that are coming up that I will be involved in.

SQL Server Roadshows - April & May - I will be at Boston, NY, Houston, and Dallas (Only $99)

* Boston, April 19 * New York, April 21 *
* Anaheim, April 26 * San Francisco, April 28 *
* Chicago, May 12 * Houston, May 17 * Dallas, May 19 *

Register now and receive a one-year PASS membership and one-year SQL Server Magazine subscription at:
 
http://www.windowsitpro.com/roadshows/sqlserverusa/index.cfm?code=sponsorhtml

PASS European Conference - www.sqlpass.org - May 11-13 - Munich

DevTeach - www.DevTeach.com - June 18-22 - Montreal

PASS Community Summit - www.sqlpass.org - Sep 27-30 - Grapevine (Dallas)

I hope to see some of you at these events.  I like hanging out with junkies.

North Texas SQL Server User Group meeting tonight!

Need to optimize your queries but do not know where to start?  Have you been told to review the execution plan but do not know what to look for?  In this session, you will learn how to review a stored procedure’s execution plan to understand the flow of the stored procedure as well as determine likely areas needing to be optimized.  This session will present a few of the top performance issues that are common in a large number of queries and how you can easily spot these areas by reviewing the execution plan. - presented by Randy Dyess

www.ntssug.com

 When:  6:30pm - 9:00pm       (Pizza too!)

On Jan 18 at the Westin Galleria in Dallas, better than 950 SQL Server professionals attended the 1-day free event at the Westin.  Bill Baker gave the keynote and said that SQL Server 2005 would ship this Summer and to also consult the calendar on when Summer officially ends.

I attended breakout sessions on Security, Data Warehousing Enhancements, High Availability, and Internals.  Of course, there was a strong marketing message from Microsoft, but not all of the speakers were MSFT employees.  The main focus was 2005 and the neat features coming your way.

Perhaps the thing that I enjoyed the most was catching up with some folks that I have not seen in a while.  Networking with other professionals is perhaps the biggest benefit of events like these.  Thanks to everyone who dropped by the booth to say “Hi“.  I enjoyed meeting you.

There were about 12 exhibitors.  SWAG was OK.  It seems like most exhibitors are going for the one big giveaway instead of the everyone gets something approach.  This is OK, but I'd like to win sometime. ;-)

As a reminder, PASS will be at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine this September.  Hope to see you then!

At the PASS Summit, the folks from PSS had a lab environment where you could sit down and go through some exercises to learn how to use tools and learn what to look for when diagnosing SQL Server problems.  PSS was also at the Seattle Summit last year and I did not get a chance to go to the labs.  This year, I was able to carve out an hour to see what it was about.  I started on the Memory labs.  Because of everything else that was going on, I did not have time to finish.  These same labs are now available for download and use on your own system.  There is a link to the files at http://www.sqlpass.org where you can obtain them.  These files are available to everyone - not just attendees of the PASS Summit.

These labs are based on SQL Server 2000 sp3a and hotfix MS03-031.  Do NOT use these on your production server.  Set up a test server, VPC, or other PC to work on these.

The labs include the following topics:

• Memory
• Performance
• Blocking
• Recovery
• Debugging

Enjoy!

Last week I spent a lot of time with my students on the basics of INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE statements.  Since they had already been exposed to the basic form of the statements, I was real excited to show them how to use all of these SELECT staements I had them doing earlier in the term with these statements.  Sub-queries still have several of them confused, but they seemed to have grasped the concept of getting the SELECT working frist before marrying it to an INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE statement. Shortly, we will start getting these statements inside of transactions.  That will really start to get them thinking!  This week is fall break! 

Here's to the future!

Once again I am blogging about material presented to my class.  This time it is Backup/Recovery basics. 

The students have been quizzed on RAID and now have a good understanding of what RAID works well for the data file and what RAID works well for the log.  Again, this is where the SQL Server difference with Access is highlighted.  We are assuming the FULL Recovery Model when discussing this subject. 

I have a scenario where a FULL backup is done at 1am Sunday and Differential backup is done on the other days also at 1am.  I have a second scenario where FULL backups are done daily at 1am.  We then go through the steps to take if a hard drive crashes on various days.  We can't forget about log backups either!  In short, this discussion really helps the students see the separation between a personal database and an enterprise class database.  We will discuss High Availability later in the course.

This is one of my favorite topics because I believe it will stick with them when they go out in the workforce and make decisions about the back-end database.  Sure an access mdb file is easier to care for in the simplest sense, but the SQL Server model puts a premium on the value of data.  It takes more work and skill to cae for a SQL Server database, but the data is protected if setup properly. 

I attended a session late on Thursday on SQL Server Security by Randy Dyess.  It was a good presentation on the attack surfaces as well as pointers to other resources where deeper info could be found.

Friday's Keynote was done by HP.  The best portion was the demo of their Installation tool which simplifies installation and updates of the SQL Server instances within your organization.  Very cool!

At last year's PASS event, I really could not get over to the PSS Labs.  I just went through the Memory Labs.  Picked up a few tips to help me manage things better!  I will not be able to get through the other labs here, but the other labs include:

• Blocking and Deadlocking
• Performance
• Debugging
• Server and Data Recovery

This lab was manned by some of the best PSS folks like Ken Henderson.  Others also seemed to enjoy the labs as well.

Next week, I'll bet at PASS in Orlando.  I plan to blog daily (or perhaps more - hopefully). 

There is a welcome reception on Tuesday evening.  I will be there.  Look me up.  Also, I will be speaking first thing on Wednesday AM at the New Member Breakfast Session at 7am.  If you are attending PASS for the firt time, please attend this breakfast session.  It will highlight the benefits of membership in introduce you to the candidates for the Board of Directors as well as a preview of some of the events not to miss for the balance of the week. 

Disney property is directly on the other side of I-4 at the Gaylord Palms.  If your family comes with you, they will have easy access to WDW.

Monday and Tuesday are Pre-conference seminars which will focus mainly on SQL Server 2005 readiness.  I really can't wait fo the week to begin!  It is VERY tiring, but the information you get and the contacts you make will stay with you for a long time.

I've been learning a lot lately about SQL Server Express 2005.  There is still one advantage that MSDE will have over SSE that has almost nothing to do with its feature set.  It is that MSDE will still run on the 9x platform.  I know that many folks say that is not important.  How many small companies or organizations are still running 98 on some PC in the corner?  How many charities or not-for-profits have the latest equipment? 

I am a proponent of enticing these groups to get up to date with newer equipment, but many of these places are struggling and think that a Pentium 300 is a fast PC.  When developing with MSDE or SSE, consider the audience and what is the “worth” of your application.  Is it worth the trouble of these organizations to beef up their older equipment to a respectable PC? 

There are many nice things about SSE.  Don't get me wrong, but make sure that the client is able to run the app on the equipment they have.

Another $.02 in the pot.....